Dr. Len's Cancer Blog

A study released today by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute is certain to give women pause when they find out that drinking alcohol of any type significantly raises their lifetime risks of being diagnosed with certain cancers. 

You are diagnosed with cancer.  You remember some of what the doctor said, but not much.  So, following the recommendations of the American Cancer Society, you do everything you can to get information online and elsewhere that may help you better understand your treatment and your disease.

That’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?

Maybe yes and maybe no, if you agree with the findings of a paper published today in the journal Cancer.

The start of our day here at the American Cancer Society was quickly punctuated by the rumor—and then the confirmation—that one of our friends, a valued colleague and mentor lost her life to a horrific crime sometime yesterday in Atlanta.

Jeanne Calle was a member our Society family since 1989.  She was Vice President of Epidemiology here at our National Home Office in Atlanta. 

You probably didn’t know Jeanne by her name, but you did know her by her work.  She was an epidemiologist who worked incessantly to unlock the secrets of what population-based information can tell us about the causes and risk factors that lead to cancer.  There are few researchers in this country who have labored so hard and been so successful at bridging the gap between what we learn from epidemiology research and how we apply that information to our everyday lives.

No sooner had the ink dried on my blog from last week about the problems controlling the costs and off-label uses of cancer chemotherapy drugs than the Annals of Internal Medicine published three articles and an editorial on the topic of off-label drugs in cancer treatment.

And the Annals’ conclusions weren’t any too kind to our current system of determining what drugs Medicare will or will not pay for when it comes to cancer treatment: we are—according to the journal—in a world of hurt.

An article in a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine once again raises the question of how are we going to afford our cancer treatments now and in the years to come?

The report, written by Peter Bach MD who is currently on the faculty of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and in the recent past served as a special advisor for oncology to the Administrator of the Medicare program, highlights the difficulties that the Medicare program has controlling the increasingly substantial costs of new cancer drugs.

As acknowledged in the article, we have made advances in the treatment of advanced cancers, such as colorectal cancer.  But these advances have come at huge costs.

You work hard, take good care of your family, and although of modest means you manage to put up a couple of dollars for your retirement. 

And then one day you wake up and feel a lump in your neck.  You find out you have an aggressive form of lymphoma and will require extensive treatment that has a reasonable chance of saving your life.

And then you start getting the bills, wondering what happened to that health insurance you pay for at work?

That’s when many folks just like you find out the grim news: your insurance isn’t enough to pay the medical bills for your lifesaving medical care.  Your savings are gone, your retirement is gone, and you don’t know where to turn.

That is, unfortunately, not an unusual story as borne out in a detailed report on cancer and health insurance released today by the American Cancer Society and the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Cancer is a worldwide disease, and in recognition of that fact the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) has designated today as World Cancer Day. What’s interesting about this is the theme they have designated for their next year’s focus: “I love my healthy active childhood.” 

Why, you might ask, is a leading international cancer organization choosing to emphasize children and obesity as a target for this campaign?